MAKING BOOKS

MAKING BOOKS; No Buzz Book This Holiday

By Martin Arnold

Published: December 5, 2002

Book sales seem doughy so far this holiday season. It may be a bit early to predict what magic, if any, is lurking about to make things better during the next few weeks, other than the anguish of the last-minute shopper. The reason most often given for this flabbiness is the soft economy. But I suspect there is another reason that there seems to be so little fun in book publishing and selling now: there's no buzz book, no book that people talk about or at least hear about, even if they don't read it. Book talk is great for book selling.

Perhaps surprisingly, when there is a rumble book it is often a work of literary fiction that has gone astray and become a best seller. It also helps when the author loudly embarrasses himself. Last year at this time, book sales were stronger. Last year Jonathan Franzen's critically acclaimed novel ''The Corrections'' (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) was still rollicking along on best-seller lists. Its sales were driven partly by his disparaging Oprah Winfrey. He suggested that his appearance on her show would be out of keeping with his place in ''the high-art literary tradition,'' only to find himself derided by the very literati he was part of.

I exaggerate, but there is little doubt that buzz creates excitement and excitement attracts buyers, and this season there is no book quite as discussed as was ''The Corrections.'' Perhaps only three literary novels generated much chatter this year: Ian McEwan's ''Atonement'' (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday), Jonathan Safran Foer's ''Everything Is Illuminated'' (Houghton Mifflin) and Alice Sebold's ''Lovely Bones'' (Little, Brown). (Ms. Sebold's book, published in June, is still a best seller.)

Two Christmases ago, when there was no buzz book, the bookstore chains had indifferent holiday sales. This week Publishers Weekly, the industry's trade journal, reported that the economy, slow store traffic and a relatively short selling season have made chain stores cautious about holiday sales. (Why isn't buying a book a good antidote to a slow economy? For less than $30, one can give a great gift, which is why last-minute shopping could bring some smiles to booksellers.)

Diana Abbott, manager of the Bookworm in Omaha, an independent bookstore, said: ''Anytime you have a focus book, one people want to talk about, it's the best thing for us. When customers feel something's going on, business is especially good. There's no book like that now.''

The other gloomy news for booksellers and publishers is the apparent erosion in the sales of brand-name authors. For instance, ''Prey'' (HarperCollins), Michael Crichton's latest novel and part of a two-book deal said to be worth at least $25 million, will be No. 1 on the New York Times hardcover best-seller list on Dec. 15 but is not meeting the expectations of booksellers.

Several publishing sources said that Barnes & Noble projected sales of about 75,000 copies last week, and then sold between 32,000 and 35,000 copies, surely paradise for most writers but not up to expectations for Mr. Crichton. Bob Wietrak, a Barnes & Noble merchandising executive, declined to discuss figures, but said that he thought from the beginning that ''Crichton would be the No. 1 fiction book for the holidays, and we are very happy with its sales.''

Jane Friedman, Mr. Crichton's publisher, said that his sales ''are 50 percent higher than the next book, and all our projections are right on our number.'' HarperCollins initially shipped 1.5 million copies of ''Prey.''

Several independent bookstores had similar reports on the Crichton book, as well as on other brand-name thrillers. One publishing executive suggested, not entirely in jest, that newspapers are reporting such thrilling events that ''maybe readers' appetites have changed and thrillers that used to be so thrilling aren't so thrilling anymore'' compared with what is really happening. Or they've had too much thrill already. Conventional wisdom has it that women buy 70 percent of fiction, and that thrillers are not often crossover buys for women.

Cookbooks seem to be up this season, a sort of self-help hedge against spending money dining out, said Ms. Abbott and Annabelle Siegel, manager of Anderson's Bookstore in Larchmont, N.Y. ''Very few people used to cook, but that seems to have changed,'' Ms. Siegel said.

This seems particularly to be a hand sales year at independent stores. Hand sales are when a book is plucked from a shelf by a sales person and put in a customer's hand. Cookbooks make a good hand sale.

Despite the angst this year, there is still a magic about bookstores and publishing. It is, I think, the wonder of the unexpected. The other afternoon at the Barnes & Noble at 48th Street and Fifth Avenue in Midtown, there was not the seasonal hyperkinesia that I had seen in a Barnes & Noble at Christmastime several years ago. But there were a good number of people buying ''Prey''; and Bob Woodward's ''Bush at War (Simon & Schuster), the sales of which perhaps exceeded expectations; and Pat Conroy's ''My Losing Season'' (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday), also doing better than anticipated; as well as Donna Tartt's ''Little Friend'' (Knopf), which did not do as well as expected, but was still a best seller.

Corinne Gray, a Frenchwoman from Normandy on her first visit to Manhattan, was looking for a book about New York to take home to her husband ''because I like the city so much.'' She came here to shop, she said, adding, ''This is my last stop.'' She bought ''New York Then and Now'' (Thunder Bay Press) by Annette Witheridge.

Standing next to her were two women, one looking through the racks of wooden puzzles. ''My husband loves puzzles,'' she said. ''It's something for him to do.'' Her friend shrugged, saying, ''I buy them for children.''

As I mentioned, there's a lot of conventional wisdom about who buys what. Women don't buy thrillers because, one bookstore manager said, ''they often make the brain go dead.''

And women supposedly don't go much for lusty adventure yarns. But Frances Barbuto had three Patrick O'Brian books and one of C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower novels, all 19th-century British Navy excitements, in her arms. Ms. Barbuto said: ''I bought them for my sister. She loves them, and she doesn't even sail.''

Such astonishments are always prowling about in a bookstore. Which is what makes them such a wonderful place to spend time in. Still, where are you, Jonathan Franzen, when the book business needs you?